SynthesisJournal of cancer survivorship : research and practice2023
Social media-based interventions for patients with cancer: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomised controlled trials.
Synthesis in Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Social-Media-Based Mental Health Interventions: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Pooled it
- Article
- The use of social media interventions for breast cancer survivors: a narrative review.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Review
- Evaluating How Patients with Thyroid Cancer Use Online Resources and Social Media to Access Health Information.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2025Article
- Social Media-Based Cancer Education: Bibliometric and Thematic Analysis.JMIR cancer · 2025Article
- Article
- Partnering With Social Media Influencers to Equitably Improve Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Outcomes: A Novel Strategy to Support Cancer Care Delivery.JCO oncology practice · 2024Article
- Results of the Italian cross-sectional web-based survey "Nutrition and breast cancer, what would you like to know?" An attempt to collect and respond to patients' information needs, through social media.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Social media use and health promotion among cancer survivors.Psycho-oncology · 2024Article
- Development of Quality of Life in Adolescents and Young Adults With Cancer Using a Patient Support Smartphone App: Prepost Interventional Study.JMIR cancer · 2023Article
- Perspectives and Experiences of Patients With Thyroid Cancer at a Global Level: Retrospective Descriptive Study of Twitter Data.JMIR cancer · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThis review aimed to (1) evaluate the effectiveness of social media-based interventions for improving the quality of life, anxiety and depressive symptoms of patients with cancer at post-intervention and follow-up; (2) identify the essential features of social media-based interventions and (3) explore the covariates of the treatment effect.
methodsAll types of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were included. Ten electronic databases, clinical trial registries and grey literature sources were searched from inception to 15 December 2021. Stata software was used to perform meta-analysis, subgroup analyses and meta-regression analyses. Individual quality assessment and certainty of evidence were assessed using Cochrane risk of bias tool version 1 and Grading of Recommendations Assessments, Development and Evaluation criteria, respectively.
resultsThis review included 43 RCTs, which comprised 6239 patients with a total mean age of 49.71 years old from across 11 countries. Social media-based interventions significantly improved the quality of life (g = 0.25, 95% CI = 0.05-0.45) and anxiety symptoms (g = - 0.41, 95% CI = - 0.76-0.07) but not depressive symptoms. The essential features based on the subgroup analysis concluded that using a mobile device with a flexible frequency had a remarkably greater effect on the quality of life and anxiety symptoms than their counterparts. The meta-regression showed the covariate features, where having more social media features in interventions significantly improved the quality of life (β = 0.21, p = 0.01). The certainty of evidence was very low for all outcomes.
conclusionsParticipants who received social media-based interventions may experience an increase in quality of life and reduction in anxiety symptoms. IMPLICATIONS FOR CANCER SURVIVORS: Social media-based interventions may complement usual care in improving quality of life and anxiety symptoms. Registration in PROSPERO CRD42022297956.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.